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julietsierra -> RE: Misdirected D/s among vanillas? (1/7/2007 6:04:38 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JustUsTwo
Bottom line here: do you notice vanilla relationships around you (or have you been in one) that suck because those involved won’t/can’t face the truth of their D/s nature?
I'm not going to attempt to answer for every single abused man and woman out there. Just because our stories are amazingly similar even as our experiences are different does not mean the motivations for our being in those situations were the same.
I'll just speak for myself.
As I was growing up, I was pretty darn self-confident. No, I wasn't the most popular kid in school, but I was comfortable within my own skin. I can say that in retrospect, I have always been someone one might say had a submissive nature, but I can't say that I understood what that was. I just knew I really enjoyed doing things for other people, from bringing my dad his coffee, to helping other kids on with their boots in the first grade to the point where I would habitually miss the bus home because I, myself wasn't ready, to knocking myself out with the different little fund-raisers, bake sales, community service activities in junior high school, to volunteering and eventually working in sheltered workshops for the disabled community here in high school.
I was absolutely and unequivocally attracted in every single relationship I have ever had, to those who exhibited very strong personalities, took control of situations at all times - even when wrong, and "showed potential" for being strong, successful men as I got closer to 21 (I married at age 21)
Along the way, my parents - my mother specifically - tried to change me a lot. She tried (and succeeded in great degree, although not in the way she'd hoped - more on that later) to instill a sense of independence in me. She wanted me to not need any man in my life in order to be successful. When she saw me becoming interested in men I felt suited me, she did her best to influence me to drop these people. Some I did - when I was younger; some I didn't. And one, I should have.
The problem was that no one who had influence over me in my younger years saw the way I was as something positive. My mother did her best to give me the tools I needed in this great game of relationships, but she did it from the point of view of who she was, not the person I was. I grew up not understanding how to navigate the dating waters because my advice came from people encouraging me to seek those I had NO interest in and not how to recognize the good and bad in those I DID have interest in.
And I certainly didn't know the words submissive and dominant and what those words meant in terms of men and women. More importantly to my experience, I didn't know the difference between dominant and domineering. (There is a very fine line between the two, but that line is important.)
So, when I met the man who would eventually become my husband, he fit every criteria I had at age 20. He was strong in personality. He was dark haired, dark skinned, and he was good looking. His entire demeanor exuded confidence, control, the "potential" for success and damn it all if he wasn't sexy on top of it all. He was soft spoken, calm, and wanted things his own way. He was "it" in my eyes.
What I didn't see (and I say didn't, not couldn't, because in retrospect, it was there all along), was that, like this shiny apple with the bad spot on the back, he was wonderful, except that there was this one thing about him that was not good. It took him less than 6 months after we were married to hit me the first time. It shocked him. It shocked me. In tears, he told me he had never wanted to be one of those men who would do that to their wives. I ended up comforting HIM. I thought I was supporting my husband/keeping my marriage together/ doing what was right.
What I was doing was setting the stage for what ended up being an 18 year, mostly abusive marriage.
My husband was not a dominant man. He was a domineering man. The difference I eventually figured out was that as I saw it, a dominant man builds up the woman in his life. He gets his pleasure and control out of knowing that this woman, this "artwork" if you will, is in many respects, his doing.
A domineering man wants that same sense of control. However, he sees the build up of the woman in his life as threatening. He is afraid of the possibility that as she gets better, he will look less. And he only feels as if he is "more" if he tears her down to be "less." He is really operating from a position of insecurity, not confidence. The confidence he shows is the mask he uses to hide the insecurity.
I still believe this difference between dominance and domineering is important.
That insecurity, and the bone deep "knowledge" that he was not what he seemed, despite the mask, is what lead my husband to alcohol and eventually the abuse that pretty much was an every day part of our lives. His ability to tear me down, accompanied by my resolute insistence on keeping my marriage together (also deeply ingrained due to religious views, and family expectations), led to the erosion of my self confidence, and eventually, my self- respect. I came to BELIEVE I was no good, ignorant, not acceptable to anyone else out there.
So, the problem for me, in my marriage was not that the abuse was due to my low self esteem. It was because that lowered self-esteem was learned even as I tried like hell to serve this man I loved (service and love being intrinsically entwined to me). I had no clue that the more I did, the more I reinforced his view of himself as being worthless. In his mind, if he was worthless and I wanted to be with him, then I was worth even less than he was. I thought I was doing what was right and that with just a little more of this, that or the other thing, everything would be all right. To him, since he wasn't worth anyone's effort, he lost whatever respect he did have for me. It was really convoluted and unhealthy thinking on both our parts. I tried to submit more (even though it's only in hindsight that I recognize what I was doing as submission). He didn't understand it and didn't respect it. The less he respected what I was doing, the more he abused, the more I believed I was worthless, the more I submitted trying to feel good, the less he respected what I was doing. It was circular and it was destructive.
He stopped doing anything at all that could be considered part of a union. It got to the point where I was doing everything in the house, from taking care of kids to the lawn work, to bills, to ... just everything. I saw it as helping him. He saw it as him being useless and what the hell, if I was fool enough to do all this, then he was going to let me.
I believe my experience with an abusive man was the result of unawareness of my submissiveness, what was good about it, and what was not so good about it (because there ARE negative aspects to being a submissive that, to me, a submissive MUST be aware of in order to protect him or herself).
I believe that my experience with an abusive man was the result of me having no one that girls typically can turn to in order to understand men. I couldn't go to my mother because she believed that all I had to do was stop being me. Both of my grandmothers were submissive, but while I could talk to them about a lot of things, my boyfriends weren't one of the things I could discuss. No one was there in my younger years to help me learn about myself - the way I was, not just the way they wanted me to be.
So, like most other lessons in my life, I learned the hard way. And like the Chumbawumba song, "I get knocked down, but I get up again, ain't nothin' goin to keep me down." But I learned.
Interestingly, I learned the lessons my mother wanted me to learn - I just put my own spin on it. Now days, I am VERY independent. You won't see me proclaiming lovely essays on "trust" and things like that. I am very much of the belief that I'm here because I want to be, and that the man in my life may do things that would violate "trust," but since I'm here because *I* want to be, I'll make the decision to stay or go based on what I want, not whether his deeds or misdeeds are somehow an indication of trust or a breech of that trust. I'm here because I submit. Not because he has to earn or lose my submission. It's simply because I submit. And when I choose not to submit, I won't be here. I learned the hard way that what I do will not influence someone else's behavior, so all I can do is what I will do and I'll leave everyone else's behavior up to them.
To answer your original question, I very much believe that my involvement in an abusive relationship was due, not to my unwillingness to face the truth, but my lack of awareness of the truth of my submissiveness, and my naivity and lack of knowledge regarding what to look for in a dominant man. My involvement in an abusive marriage was also due to my misguided loyalties and my resolve to do whatever I needed to do to keep my marriage together.
I take full responsibility for the longevity of my marriage and the longevity of my involvement in an abusive situation. After I left, I recognized that my sense of loyalty and resolve might very well be the downfall of me in subsequent relationships, and I spent a LOT of time learning more about myself so that hopefully, I'd be better able to recognize the right person on down the road.
I'd say it looks as if I have.
juliet
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